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"This is Robot Wars Extreme, where being the best is just not good enough! To survive here, a robot needs to be stronger, more skillful and more downright destructive than ever before!"

— Craig Charles introduction from Episode 4

Robot Wars Extreme: Series 1 was the first series of Robot Wars Extreme - a series of special episodes of the television game show Robot Wars. It featured new titles when it was originally broadcast in 2001 on BBC Choice and repeated from 2001 until 2002 on BBC Two. The series was hosted by Craig Charles, the pit reporter was Julia Reed and commentary was provided by Jonathan Pearce.

Between the summer and winter seasons of 2010, Extreme Series 1 was re-run on the British TV channel Dave, amongst rumours of a return for the show. During December 2010, Dave finished repeating Extreme 1, and started broadcasting re-runs of Robot Wars Extreme: Series 2. Dave currently have the rights to both series of Robot Wars Extreme and rerun the series occasionally. Challenge showed repeats of Extreme Series 1 from November 30th to December 18th 2015.

Contents

The series consisted of 18 separate competitions and one-off battles, spread over several episodes. Every episode featured five separate battles, usually a mix of the various competitions and battles which were running throughout the series. The exceptions were the two Annihilator shows and the Forces Special, which were episodes devoted to single competitions. The series also featured the UK broadcast of The Second World Championship.

Whilst the series contained a variety of competitions in each episode, the 15 main episodes each had a designated "Main Event" that was advertised throughout the show. The main event was usually the last fight to be aired, with the exception of episodes 7, 10 and 14.

The All-Stars tournament featured "the best of the best", as was described frequently in the show. It was a single knock-out competition between robots that had been finalists or semi-finalists in UK or World Championships.

In this tournament, first seen in the Fourth Wars, robots were paired up into teams to fight each other. Only one robot from each team was allowed in the arena at a time and the teams could switch robots by 'tagging' them.

In the Mayhem, three robots fought against one another, with the winners qualifying for an annihilator. The annihilator featured six robots in the arena, with one robot being eliminated in each round until only one was left standing. There were two annihilators in total, and 12 mayhem qualifiers, 6 for each annihilator.

Note: Bigger Brother, 3 Stegs to Heaven, Plunderbird 5, Suicidal Tendencies, 101, Mega Morg, Firestorm 3 and Spawn Again were all due to compete, but were forced to withdraw from the tournament for one reason or another. Arnold A. Terminegger, Cataclysmic Variabot, Fluffy, Panzer Wraith, Disc-O-Inferno, Shear Khan, The Spider and Velocirippa fought in their places[1]

Note: After winning their mayhem battles, Atomic 2 and Bulldog Breed 3 were forced to drop out after taking severe damage from Hypno-Disc in another battle. Fighting Torque and Spirit of Knightmare took their respective places in the annihilator.

Exhibition was an event showcased in issue 20 of the Robot Wars Magazine. The concept of the event was to challenge roboteers and their claims of what their robots can achieve (such as pulling a Land Rover), by proving such claims are true whilst inside the arena. However, the event was scrapped for unknown reasons.

The People's Challenge was an event to be held in the first series of Robot Wars Extreme. The concept of this event was that the robots competing were chosen by the viewers. Fans would post their ideas for fights on the internet, before a vote was held to determine the most popular. These would then be discussed on the show itself, whereby the most popular or interesting battle would take place.

The winning "match-up" was between Hypno-Disc and Razer, but both teams declined, and the event never went ahead.

At the end of the series, a special episode was shown featuring the UK broadcast of the Second World Championship. The championship featured 16 robots from around the world competing to become the second world champion.